Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hi Jloveys, tell you the truth, until I hear it for myself, I can't say. Which is why I am commissioning two stone plinths, one of slate and one of something else. Also to realize - finally - that first dream I had of a marble Lenco back in the Helsinki days. But, my alarm bells ring when I read statements like "the best minds seem to be going towards slate", when, in fact, slate was never compared to any other type of stone and reported on and, as well, that the current slate craze started in Wales, world exporter of slate (and not much else, all due respect to the Welsh).

Add to that various well-known crazes in audio, like digital amps (which lose their allure after one gets used to them) and the well-known audiophile equipment trick of emphasizing the higher frequencies in order to present bogus detail (which has worked repeatedly over the years), and the fact that stone will reflect energies far more than any type of wood so leading to this similar unbalance, and I have cause to be suspicious. Add, furthermore, the well-known propensity of many audiophiles to always look for the exotic and difficult over the simple and effective (consider cables, complex circuitry, multiple-layer podded belt-drive monstrosities, etc.). But, I also respect many of those espousing slate, which explains why I will go to the trouble of having a slate plinth made. Finally, slate is not the CLD material it is made out to be, what it is is endless layers of the same material, fractious exactly where these layers meet each other, which might lead to yet more detail emphasis rather than, like certain wood products, absorption of noise and neutral preservation of true tonalities and so forth. Marble and travertine, however, both made of conglomerates of disparate materials, far better deserve the characterization of "CLD" (and are beautiful to boot). Anyway, we'll find out, and I will report honestly, as always. Might be my farewell present to myself.

In other news, I recently finished a Garrard 301 project, which involved a Loricraft power supply. I built it into an Ultra birch-ply/mdf plinth (larger than the usual 23" x 19" x 6" plinth), mounted both a Triplanar VII and a 12" cherry tonearm to it (and tested that with my Denon 103"E") and found it to be exceedingly good. This was definitely the best result I have ever gotten from a Garrard, and the fellow it belonged to reported it was the best playback he has ever heard (saying it handily outperforms both the exotic-material Raven and the SME 30) and that it beat his EMM Labs digital set-up (retrieving previously-unheard detail), though it's hard to say whether it was the mass, the power supply, or both. Coincidentally, in a recent talk with someone (I forget who now) I was told it was an underground understanding that Garrards sound best at 240V, and the Loricraft power supply allows just this. So, for those who own Garrards, it might be something to try to get a step-up transformer - assuming you have the "original" European wheels - and try this out to see if it makes an improvement.

I've been playing around with that Antique Sound Lab preamp, and though it is not in the same league as the CJ preamps in audiophile terms (but not too far behind), it just has SUCH literally hair-raising timing (as so many of the ASL pieces have) that it has become my premier beloved preamp: when it plays MUSIC (even with digital!!), I just start to melt, to shiver, to experience that long-lost (since the ARC SP-8 days) Kundalini Effect!!! Caveat: according to the dealer here in town, you have a roughly 50-50 chance it will blow up on you. But I've always had good experiences with ASL gear. Now to roll the dice on an ASL Typhoon :-). My dealer will have a heart attack.

Anyway, I'll soon also have my Sony 2250 set up in one of my Giant Direct Coupled plinths, that same beastie which I reported on a while back trampled the legendary Technics SP-10 MKII underfoot (but not a Lenco, using the same RS-A1/Monster Cable Sigma Genesis 2000 - currently the mind behind ZYX - on each ;-)). In addition, the Sony, which has an absolutely superb main bearing (clearly better than the Technics), DOES respond to power conditioners, quite well, further improving things. I'm thinking of putting an Oracle mat (hard metacrylate, not so heavy) on the Sony platter. Will report on THAT combo in the near future, before starting on the Rek-o-Kut.

So, have an equal amount of fun, laddies and lasses.

Johnnantais wrote:

" So, for those who own Garrards, it might be something to try to get a step-up transformer - assuming you have the "original" European wheels - and try this out to see if it makes an improvement."

If one is in the USA or Canada or anywhere else where the AC line frequency is 60Hz, the "European wheels" (assuming he means "motor pulley") are not necessary. The rotation of the motor is primarily dependent upon the line frequency. It would only be necessary to change the position of the links in the voltage changeover block to adapt a Garrard 301 or 401 to 220V-240V/60Hz. The idler wheels do not differ between 60Hz and 50Hz, or 120V/240V.

I might suspect some difference between 50Hz and 60Hz operation, though. At 60Hz the motor is spinning 20% faster, perhaps increasing the "flywheel effect" of the motor's armature.

Hi Gene, yes, I was about to correct that. Actually, one would suspect that increased flywheel effect of the motor should improve things. But, it may also make the motor more audible, leading to some sort of "break-up"/loss of control. So, this would be a case of comparing the two - with step-up and without - to see what the effect is.

On the issue of SP10 MKII vs Sony 2250, I had already written way back that what I suspected was happening was a case of torque vs inertia. The SP10 has a much more powerful motor, and no physical system being perfect, this means the Technics platter cannot overcome the motor's speed imperfection/signature (which is quartz locking made audible). The Sony, on the other hand, has less torque (and is servo-controlled), allowing the platter to overcome the motor's signature, smoothing out any audible deviations from perfect speed. The other advantage the Sony has, like the Garrards and the Lenco, is that it can be Direct Coupled, while the Technics cannot. There are ways, however, to ameliorate the Technics' coupling, but it cannot be Direct Coupled the way the Sony can. And Direct Coupling makes a world of difference. Whatever the case, as with the Lenco back when I declared it a real Contender when the World seemed determined to dismiss it as, let's be frank, crap, so I now urge those out there to also consider this one, a Sleeping Beauty waiting to be taken seriously. Be playing with mine soon.

Finally, I see the idler wheel making serous inroads, being brought back in various forms as well as being exhumed and revived from various basements. Of course, as in the beginning, I still believe the idler-wheel system is the superior system, various statements made by even idler-wheel aficionados, that no system is superior, being unscientific and based on nothing else but faith, motivated by a philosophy/atmosphere of political correctness (i.e. offend no one). Perhaps we offend the mouse when we state, with certainty, that the elephant is heavier and more massive, but this is simple fact. Perhaps we offend the fans of steam power that the combustion engine is superior, producing superior power in a much smaller package, at lesser cost. Nevertheless, this also is true. So why balk at similar differing mechanical/engineering systems in another arena? I see many of those who argued, back in the starting days of the original thread, that speed stability had been addressed sufficiently by the belt-drive system, and that stylus force drag was inconsequential. And yet even then the best LP-spinners relied on extreme mass to produce more stable speed (and why if stylus force drag was not seriously affecting speed stability?) and extra motors to produce more torque to overcome, indeed, stylus force drag? Many/most opposed me when I declared the belt-drive the inferior of the three systems (and still do), and yet many of these now espouse the growing DD phenomenon as well. Both the idler system and the DD system produce, like the combustion vs the steam engine, far greater results for far less economic investment. A $3K to $20 K DD system, produces equivalent or superior results to a $100K belt-drive system. Why? Because, like the steam engine, a far greater amount of carefully-machined materials is required to get equivalent results from a belt-drive machine, and this is at the root of engineering: producing results to a cost. Otherwise we would all be driving $100-million trains to reach equivalent-to-combustion engine speeds (and the analogy is apt: a $150K belt-drive – simple platter driven by a motor via a belt - is equivalent to the $100-million steam train).

Maybe the DD will win the battle, but I have faith that the facts will eventually catch up to the various sources of prejudice - political correctness included - and the idler will eventually be found to have been, all along, the best of the three systems. An extremely slow-revolving motor system which, given the fact that this magnifies speed imperfections to a truly large degree, requires extensive computerized control to be workeable (DD); vs a system which relies entirely on a high-torque, high speed precision mechanical motor designed specifically for that purpose, counterbalanced by the required amount of inertia, requiring a platter which, given concentration of mass at the periphery, need be no more massive that 10 pounds or so, thus obeying the engineering aim of cost vs performance. And that's what it is all about. Furthermore, purely mechanical systems are far easier to repair and restore than complex circuitry and computerization, furthering the aim of cost vs performance (but not the time-honoured economic principle of planned obsolescence).

So, to those who love the idler sound but continue to deny years of accumulating evidence, I say pull up your britches, accept the daily-growing evidence, and join in the battle for scientific truth! Politics has no place in scientific research/investigations, and never has (though this doesn’t mean politics hasn’t contaminated/compromised scientific research/findings to a truly horrendous degree).

I keep hearing/being told that the Lenco has limits. Like the political correctness thing which, in the utter absence of evidence, offered simply as a given (like the old given that the Sun revolved around the Earth, which, actually and come to think of it, at least had some evidence to support it, that being that it certainly **looks** like the Sun revolves around the Earth) says that no one system is superior to another, being simply a matter of implementation. Where is the scientific evidence for either of these two statements (all systems are equal and the Lenco has limits)? And as written, if it costs twice as much (or more) to get similar results from system A as from system B, then, very simply, system B is superior. Likewise, where is the evidence that the Lenco has limits? Apart from the pure hearsay of those who for various reasons (none of them objective and based on evidence) keep saying this, there is no evidence. Like George Bush who, in the absence of evidence, simply kept repeating that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, until, eventually, he was believed by a majority. So far I have personally compared my Lencos against belt-drives and other pricey machines to the $50K level, and often receive reports of similar experiences from around the world, both direct to me and on various forums. Like any recipe in a kitchen, just because someone follows the recipe, doesn't mean the same results will be guaranteed, and lesser results doesn't invalidate the recipe. That's why there are recognized levels of talent, from middling through chefs. So, the upper limits of the "regular" birch-ply/mdf Glass-Reinforced Giant Direct Coupled Lenco has not yet been found, especially in the currently belt-drive-dominated marketplace, which is how this whole thing started, and what I was aiming at in the beginning, that being the context/battle. But say the upper limits of the Lenco had been reached at the $50K level? What would that mean? Say a new Lenco was manufactured today, as it is with pressed metal chassis, eight-pound balanced platter and 1800 rpm motor and smallish main bearing balanced on a ball bearing, and sunk into a 65-pound birch-ply/mdf mass. Would it come anywhere near $50K retail? Not even close, given the standards of engineering of materials and cost of materials. So, back to manufacturing to a price, the Lenco proves the idler-wheel system superior to the belt-drive, at any rate. I not only continue to espouse the birch-ply/mdf recipe because of its extreme effectiveness, but also because the experiment is not yet finished. My own experiment that is, in which I am trying to prove the superiority of the idler-wheel drive, which so many find offensive due to the current philosophical atmosphere of political correctness (which I emphasize again is a social, not scientific application). By rushing off in a million different directions (materials, implementation, etc.), this experiment fizzles out, and we are back to that tired old canard that no one system is superior to another (tell that to the auto industry, which according to this philosophy should re-instate the steam engine), all depending on implementation. And again: you say this based on what precisely? Examine your assumptions, for that is precisely what they are. And the identification and elimination of assumptions is also what science is about.

Anyway, many will be happy, for a variety of reasons, to see me go away, including those who want to erase me from history so they can then benefit in a variety of ways. I'm a pain in the ass, I know, but it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease/attention. By confining yourselves to out-of-the-way forums, you do not affect things to anything like the degree you do when you participate in a general forum like this one. Keep on reporting in, keep on adding -**postively**- to our store of knowledge/evidence. The idler wheel is back with a vengeance, and this would not have happened without seriously squeaky wheels, out in the public eye, in the face of the industry, on something like Audiogon.

Anyway, soon I’ll have to direct my energies elsewhere, and I’ll simply be watching from a distance (I can hear the sigh of relief), but I predict the continued inroads of the idler-wheel system, as fact and science – AND economics - finally overcome political niceties and various personal agendas. In the meantime, of course, Vive la Lenco, Vive la Idler Wheel!!

Johnnantiais, Your posts are interesting. I do have some questions for you. In your system description you list a number of turntables but NO system info. Do you listen to your turntables through a full range system? How do you evaluate your changes, you must obviously use some speakers and electronics, what might they be?

Bob

Turntable is an addictve hobby. For me since I started tweaking my turntable I had so much reward that the rest of my system is secondary. Not that it has no importance, but improving the front end to the limits makes the whole thing sound better and better . Many times I wanted to upgrade my "average" speakers to very expensive ones I ended buying a top flight tonearm or cartridge, with matching phonopreamp. Why ? Because I feel that the improvement will be more effective than a new pair of speakers. The way to have the best out of your actual turntable considering economics makes the hobby a pure pleasure. Thanks to idler wheel and isolation techniques,...